Thousands of chanting protesters lined Hong Kong's harbour Sunday in a protest at government plans to reclaim more of the city's famous waterway.
But while the huge turnout heartened anti-reclamation campaign leaders, they warned that a shortage of cash could scupper efforts to halt the plans in the courts.
Organisers estimated some 20,000 people gathered for the march opposing works to extend the shoreline and make way for two 12-lane congestion-relieving highways. Police, however, put the number at 1,000.
Chanting "Stop reclamation" and "save our harbour", the rally snaked along the northern shoreline of Victoria Harbour from Central to the Wan Chai district some two miles to the east.
Led by democracy campaigner Martin Lee, Society for the Protection of the Harbour (SPH) chiefs Christine Loh and Winston Chu and outspoken radio talk-show host Albert Cheng, the marchers followed the stretch of shore the government wants to reclaim.
"We only expected 2,000 people to come, but they just kept coming," said Kwok Ka-ki, convenor of protest organisers Action Group on Protection of the Harbour.
Protesters want the reclamation work halted because they say it will spoil what they believe is a beautiful natural asset and a lucrative tourist attraction.
More than a half the harbour's surface area has been lost in the past 100 years and opponents to further development fear the government will use the relief-road plans to build more tower blocks in a city they say is already choked by over-development.
"I have seen how development can ruin beautiful harbours in cities around the world and I would not like to see the same happen here," said one of the protesters, Australian Bernadette Walker, a long-time resident of the former British colony.
"If they reclaim anymore this will resemble a gutter rather than a harbour."
The route took protesters past a fleet of barges and dredgers gouging huge gulps of mud from the harbour floor where reclamation was underway.
Work had begun late last year but was halted while the SPH fought the plans in court. The work resumed last week after the case was thrown out by the High Court.
"There have been by now two decisions of the High Court in favour of the government in relation to the central reclamation phase III works," a spokesman for the housing, planning and lands bureau said.
"Taking account of the urgency of the works involved, the public interest and the third party rights created, the government can see no valid reason to continue suspending the works."
Marchers waved small blue pieces of paper or wore blue ribbons, the adopted emblem of the protest, and earlier sang a rendition of rock star Rod Stewart's ballad "I am Sailing", the campaign's rally song.
"This has gone fantastically amazing," said SPH chairwoman Loh.
"It shows that we have the public support for our campaign."
At the end of the two-hour protest, however, Loh warned the society may have to scrap its campaign because of a lack of funds. "I'm satisfied we have a legal case, I am satisfied that we have the public support but I am not so sure we have the financial backing to continue," she warned.
She said lawyers had decided the society had a strong case for appealing against the court's decision but conceded they may have to drop their plans after being left penniless by earlier legal costs.
"When we lost the High Court case we were told we may have to pay the government's costs. I couldn't possibly guess how much the government's case cost. We have spent two million (Hong Kong) dollars (257,000 US) - they would have spent far more than that.
"The government is playing a high-stakes game and we have to seriously consider whether or not we can continue from a financial point of view."
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